Georgia Moore (primary interviewee), Jackson Brown, and Willie McCaskill interview recording, 1995 July 27
-
Download
- Rights
- Files (3)
-
MP3
Part 1
-
MP3
Part 2
-
MP3
Part 3
- Please be patient with media downloads. They are often large files.
- Share
Loading the media player...
Transcript
- Download transcript as:
-
Text
-
PDF
-
WebVTT (includes timecodes)
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
| Doris Dixon | Okay. If you could give your full name and date of birth? | 0:01 |
| Jackson Brown | I'm Jackson Brown. Born 1910, 15th of November. | 0:07 |
| Doris Dixon | Okay. [indistinct 00:00:26]. | 0:12 |
| Jackson Brown | Born just inside the Carroll County Line. Which is called now the old Greenwood Air Base. Raised up there in [indistinct 00:00:47]. Okay. I told you the Carroll County line. I told you raised up partly in Carroll County and then my mother was Caroline Brown. My father was John Brown Sr. My grandfather was Jerry [indistinct 00:01:18]. My grandmother was Lucinda [indistinct 00:01:25]. That was my mother's father and mother. I knew him. But my father's mother, she was named Rachel. And her, which was my dad's daddy, he was named Adam Brown. | 0:27 |
| Doris Dixon | [indistinct 00:02:00]. Miss Moore, could you give me your full name and date of birth? | 2:03 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | Okay. My name is Georgia Willis Moore and I was born May 15, 1919 in Carroll County. | 2:04 |
| Doris Dixon | Okay. | 2:16 |
| W.J. McCaskill | W.J. McCaskill. August 11, 1921. | 2:26 |
| Doris Dixon | Were you all born in Carroll County? | 2:40 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Leflore County. | 2:42 |
| Doris Dixon | Hmm? | 2:42 |
| W.J. McCaskill | I was born in Leflore County. | 2:43 |
| Doris Dixon | But you were born in Carroll? Okay. Were you all raised here in Browning? | 2:46 |
| W.J. McCaskill | I was. | 2:52 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | Yes. | 2:54 |
| Doris Dixon | Were you, sir? | 2:54 |
| Jackson Brown | Yeah. | 2:55 |
| Doris Dixon | Then let's start off by talking about Browning. | 2:57 |
| Jackson Brown | Well, you— | 2:58 |
| Doris Dixon | What was Browning like? | 2:58 |
| Jackson Brown | You cut me off. | 2:59 |
| Doris Dixon | I didn't mean to. I was just trying to make sure I get— | 2:59 |
| Jackson Brown | [indistinct 00:03:05] wondered where you [indistinct 00:03:08]. Yes, I was raised up. I'd say, yes, I went to school in Carroll County until I was about probably 13 years old, just inside of the Carroll County line, called the [indistinct 00:03:27] School. And when I was about maybe 15, we moved over here and I started going to school here. But we were [indistinct 00:03:47] Browning already, just a little [indistinct 00:03:47]. Then I started going to school here at Browning. | 3:06 |
| Jackson Brown | And I believe that was about 1921. And the teachers there were—The first teacher I knew there was Professor Davis. Well, Professor Moore taught there before, Professor Davis did, but he was teaching in the old school they called the Dobbie School, across over there on Emmalyssa Dobbie place. Across from the railroad there in Browning. Across the railroad. His little old school there they called the Dobbie School. I didn't go to school there, but the [indistinct 00:04:36] Browning sure was going to the school up there. And that was about 1920, '21. [indistinct 00:04:46] my brothers, they'd go up the highway there. | 4:04 |
| Jackson Brown | Then after that, after they stopped the school there, there was a hall around there, the American Legion Hall, right there by my sister's place at [indistinct 00:04:58]. And they started teaching there in the two-story building. I didn't go to school there. I didn't go to school there. But later on, they built the Rosenwald School here in Browning, the Rosenwald School. Ah. I believe it was along about 1920 when they built that school. Then they got out of the hall and they were teaching in the school. I started going to school there along about 1921. I started going to school there. Professor Davis was teaching there. He was the main teacher. And his wife, she was Miss Anna Davis. | 4:47 |
| Jackson Brown | Then they had another teacher that they called Miss Bessie Reddings. There was about four or five teachers there at that school. Miss Anna Davis, Bessie Reddings, and Miss Turner, they were teaching there. And we, there wasn't a well built there along about 1921. They built that well there about 1922. Before then, we were getting water just across the road there. The old man had a well there. It wasn't a running well now, but his was a dug well. And we'd draw water out with a bucket. That's how we'd get water. | 5:49 |
| Jackson Brown | But later on, I think 1922, all the patriarchs, her father, his father, my father, the man that used to live very close to the track across [indistinct 00:06:46]. Uncle Henry Hedds. Her daddy's name, Uncle Dave. His daddy's name Al McCaskill. My daddy's name, John Brown, Walter McGhee and Jack McCaskill and all them paid—Well, what they did, they went in union and $5 or $10 apiece and they bought the well. They bought that well there. Of course, I was shooting marbles all down that well there and he was [indistinct 00:07:15] that well there. I think that. And we used to go there and get water out of the well there that they dug and didn't like children to mess with that well. | 6:32 |
| Jackson Brown | And old, mean White man lived there. That was on the Flagghart place. And you had to get some grown up to put in the ground to draw that water. When he'd draw that water and give it to us, we'd carry it to the school in pails and they had a keg to put the water in. That's the way the children got their water. | 7:22 |
| Jackson Brown | And then at that school there, there was no gas. Had the furnace started using coal, the parents would haul wood down to the school and have fire there for the children, three or four heaters there and things. That's the way they survived. And then [indistinct 00:08:02] old man that had the well, which was my wife's great granddaddy and her granddaddy had a well [indistinct 00:08:10] the railroad. They helped to donate money for the school and the parents would carry wood to the school there for fuel they have, to warm the children up. | 7:41 |
| Jackson Brown | And now the children didn't have any way of traveling, no bus. The children, three and four miles, they had to walk to school there. Then if you'd be late, the teacher would sometimes send you back home. Of course, you'd been playing on the road or something. They'd know what time your parents sent you to school. Then the parents come out there and talk with the teacher and they'd tell them, "Well, I sent him in time." They'd say, "Well, he didn't make in till such-and-such a time." Well, they'd whoop him and tell him "The next morning you'd better be there and be there in time," because the teacher is going to sure tell them. | 8:26 |
| Jackson Brown | People weren't running into the school there with shotguns and things about what the child said and don't jump on the teachers. No, they didn't do that. And then if you went to school, you went to school to obey the teacher and the teacher would teach you. You didn't go there to teach the teacher. You had to do what they said at that time. | 8:58 |
| Jackson Brown | But it's a lot different today than it was then. Then, if you went to school and you carried a knife or something like that, the school teacher would take it away from you. And when you back here, you call your parents, tell them to come, send for them to come to the school. They'd give it to the parents. Didn't bring any knife out here and no weapon at the school. | 9:18 |
| Jackson Brown | Then at that time, I remember there were devotions in school. People, we'd go to school. You had to be there around 8:30, no later than 9:00. And the teachers, what'd they do? Professor Davis, he had a bell. And he would have all of the children line up, I know this, how soldiers line up. Sometimes they'd line up two deep, three deep, just like men at war. And they would march all around that school, march all around that school, and you had to keep time. And then you'd space yourself, hang a space apart, so you'd have a step to walk. And he'd follow you with that bell. | 9:36 |
| Jackson Brown | And then they'd, "One, two, three, four. One, two, three." You had to keep time. Keep that right foot going with that other foot, left foot going with his. And then he'd just [indistinct 00:10:33] after they marched. Then they would go into the school and after that, he'd go into chapel and then they would have song and prayer. And then after that, the different teachers would get their students and go to their rooms. And I remember there weren't any White folks living around here then. There weren't any White people living around here. | 10:21 |
| Jackson Brown | There was a White man living right down below the school there, but he was on the Flagghart place. And from here to the top of the hill up there, 82 Highway, there was no White person living twixt there and the top of the hill. And the foot of the hill there, his [indistinct 00:11:17] lay right under the hill there, owned a lot of land. But Black folks owned all this land here. Squire Thomas owned this, right there by the church there. And my wife's granddaddy owned just a little [indistinct 00:11:31] there. | 10:57 |
| Jackson Brown | And there was another man named Abbott Hardy. Up there where the Bussees live right there, he owned that. And that man, about 1923 or '24, I don't know what happened to him. Down there by the radio station, the railroad crossing there, he had an old steel [indistinct 00:11:57] car. He turned it over and that's where they found him dead, right there. | 11:33 |
| Jackson Brown | After that, there was a man they called Ross, moved into that house up there, a Black man. And he was married to this lady's husband's cousin. His name was Eddie Ross. His daddy was named Ross. But he was named Eddie Ross and he had a brother named Clarence. And I was just a boy at the time. Now, he owned that place up there, where the Bussees are at. | 12:02 |
| Doris Dixon | Where the buses are right now? | 12:30 |
| Jackson Brown | Yeah, where the Bussees are at now. | 12:32 |
| Doris Dixon | The bus depot now? | 12:33 |
| Jackson Brown | Huh? | 12:34 |
| Doris Dixon | It's like a bus depot? I don't know. | 12:34 |
| Jackson Brown | No. It's Bussee. Bussee owns the place now. They own the place now. | 12:39 |
| Doris Dixon | Oh, the Bussee Place. | 12:40 |
| Jackson Brown | Yeah. The Bussees own that place now, but there's a Black man that was on it after Hardy got killed. | 12:42 |
| Doris Dixon | I understand you. [indistinct 00:12:47]. | 12:46 |
| Jackson Brown | And then, after he moved away from there, Bussee came in there. Then he ran the dairy out for years, I reckon 40 years or longer. And he had some young men that milked the cows. I think he had maybe 150 to 200 head of cows, milking, and the way he would carry milk to town, he had two big, white horses. And they had a buggy or a surrey or something. He'd hitch them to it and he'd carry milk in there and deliver to the whole town. | 12:50 |
| Jackson Brown | And his grandson, great grandson, owns the place up there now. It runs right up to the county line, the Carroll County line. The Leflore County and Carroll County line. And there's the county line still just a bit above that. Well, we used to walk from there up here to the school. In fact, we were raised right around in here. Now his father owned his grandfather's place, right across the track over there. Old Man Keith McCaskill, he was telling you, that was his grandfather. | 13:26 |
| Jackson Brown | I just can remember him. Why, his brother got a house that—His granddaddy had a house built just on this side, back in the field. I was a little boy, but his was a log house. It was a log house. And he's kind of kin to my uncle. My Uncle Solomon Jackson, he stopped there and talked to Uncle Keith. And I'd get out there and play around there at that log house, but I just can remember the old man. I just can remember him. But it's just like a dream, but I can remember that. | 13:58 |
| Jackson Brown | And there was no 82 Highway going through there yet. And then John McGhee's place over there, which goes on down south, nearly about to where the Pleasant Plain Church is sitting back down there. It go way down there, but—And there, White folk got it, got part of it. My wife's cousin, they got about 60 acres of land in there, running from the old Ray place there. The old Ray place was a rich man's place they called Book Ray. And he lived and went to Memphis while his daughter taking care of it, she was called Miss Fannie Eble. That's on the right hand side of the 82 Highway. | 14:31 |
| Jackson Brown | Runs back on down to what they call, I reckon, Cay land all back down in there. It's built up with White folks all back in there now, which used to be owned by old Book Ray. He had a mansion built up here around Mayor Mason with a fishing pool up on top of the house. But he left and went to Memphis. He's got some grandchildren now, grandchildren—Charlie Montgomery and Bill Montgomery. One of them runs the Western store down there. | 15:20 |
| Jackson Brown | But his mother owned some property over there, around Mayor Mason up there. She's named Miss Fannie. I think she's a Wagner now. And so that's about the end of that story, the history I had. But just on the other side of where the McGhee place is at, there was an old man there, and Indian man they called Old Donnelly. Old Donnelly. Somebody in 1944 went and set the house on fire and then burned him up. Burned him up. But his place was sitting just, I reckon, southeast of where he got burned up right there. And they call that Cay land, I think, now. He has 40 acres of land in there. | 15:53 |
| Jackson Brown | My auntie—He somehow, he had 40 acres there, but he deeded her two acres there and his back—On this side, on the north side of the place there. And my auntie willed it to my cousin Simon Jackson Jr., and he let the Hepfields have it, Jessa Hepfield have it. And Jessa Hepfield's wife lived down there. I believe she's named Anna Hepfield, I think. Has two acres there, and he's got that place down there. The John and Sam McGhee place there. John and Sam McGhee place there. | 16:46 |
| Jackson Brown | Used to be an old lady lived just in front of that house on the east side there. She was named Clara Eggeson. That was the sister of Squire Thomas who lived there. And they had 40 acres of land in there. She had 20 and he had 20. But somehow or another, along about '42 or '43, people got in bad shape. And the old lady, she, I don't know, got in debt somehow or another. They went to close her out. And she sold it and got just what little she could get out of it. Sam McGhee bought it from her, which is my wife's uncle. | 17:25 |
| Jackson Brown | And somehow there was some kind of confusion came up, and then he sold it to a White man. He sold it to a White man. I can't think of who it was but Getty or somebody. But anyway, after all's said and done, Gradis Rogers got the same piece of land there. And then he turned around and bought the whole 40 acres of what they had, bought her 20 and bought her brother's 20. And some of his ancestors are there now. I think some of his daughters or granddaughters live there in the house now. Gradis Rogers. He's White. Now you can ask more here. I done talked till I got tired. (others laugh) There's a heap more I could tell, but even still, that's enough. | 18:16 |
| Doris Dixon | All right. Well, let's go back to—Mr. Brown started by talking about the school, the Rosenwald School. Can you all tell, did you attend the same school? Tell me what it was like. I'm assuming it was a few years later that you went? | 19:08 |
| Jackson Brown | Hmm? | 19:20 |
| Doris Dixon | I'm asking Miss Moore now. | 19:20 |
| Jackson Brown | Oh yeah. | 19:21 |
| Doris Dixon | Did you go to the same school that he had described? | 19:24 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Yeah. | 19:36 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | I think it's the same school. | 19:36 |
| W.J. McCaskill | That was my beginning. | 19:36 |
| Doris Dixon | I was just trying to see how it was picking up. Go ahead. | 19:38 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | Look, I tape— | 19:40 |
| Doris Dixon | Yeah. | 19:40 |
| Doris Dixon | [INTERRUPTION 00:19:41]. | 19:40 |
| Doris Dixon | Okay. Now, there was a Rosenwald School here in Browning. | 19:45 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | Yes. | 19:48 |
| Doris Dixon | And did you all attend? Did you all attend that same school? | 19:49 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | Mm-hmm. Yes. | 19:51 |
| Doris Dixon | There was Professor Davis who was the principal or one of the teachers? | 19:52 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | Well, Professor Davis was the principal for a few years or something like that. Later, Mrs. Thomas was the main principal, but she was the principal there then. Clotilde Thomas, following Professor Davis. | 19:59 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Professor Mosely from West Point. | 20:33 |
| Doris Dixon | Just talk whenever you want to. | 20:35 |
| W.J. McCaskill | From West Point. | 20:37 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | Talk loudly so we hear you. | 20:37 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Oh. There's some Mosely from West Point, he was a principal of Browning school in 1926, when I started the school. I was five years old and he was the principal. And then following him was Mrs. Clotilde— | 20:38 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | Miss Thomas. Okay. | 20:55 |
| W.J. McCaskill | —Thomas. Yeah. | 20:56 |
| Doris Dixon | How many rooms were in the school? | 21:00 |
| W.J. McCaskill | We had four classrooms, hallway. We had two cloak rooms where they—Cloak room for the boys, and one for the girls, where we'd hang up our belongings and where we left our dinner. We carried dinner to school every day. And that's where we left our dinner. At 12:00, then we'd rush into the cloak room and get our dinners. And when they rang the bell at 5:00, that's where we picked up our coats and hats, in the cloak room. | 21:02 |
| W.J. McCaskill | We had an office for the principal. And then we had a stage, an auditorium. And we had a bin for to keep our coal in winter, because the county furnished some coal, but the citizens of the community furnished wood. And this is the way the school was warmed. The different citizens in the community, the parents in the community would tell what date that they could get together and they would haul wood, maybe two or three days every week. The older boys, they cut the wood and if it gave out and we had no coal, then they'd send the older boys to pick up sticks, and that's the way we kept the school heated. | 21:34 |
| W.J. McCaskill | County only gave so much coal every year, but it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough. And they furnished the chalk for the blackboard. And we brought our own books in that time. From experience, this community has always been a unified community. The people of color or Black people that lived here, always worked in unity, and that's as far as I could remember back. Those old settlers that Brother Brown talked about here, that unity was from before our time. And we were born in this community we found that it was like that and it is still a unified community. | 22:31 |
| W.J. McCaskill | It has come through the struggles in life that any other community came through. In 1928, most Black people in this community owned their own farm, they had money in the bank, and they were doing well. But in 1930, when President Hoover was elected president, he signed a bill for every bank and any insurance company that was using folk's money, they had to put up money in the federal bank for security, and if they couldn't do it, then they had to close. The bank closed up on these Black people's money, and they couldn't get money to buy their tax, to pay their tax. | 23:30 |
| W.J. McCaskill | They didn't have money to pay the money that they borrowed to farm with. They had to borrow money and couldn't pay it back. Many of the Black people lost their homes here. | 24:29 |
| Jackson Brown | That's true. | 24:39 |
| W.J. McCaskill | That's how come it's not a totally owned Black community now. | 24:40 |
| Jackson Brown | That's right. That's right. | 24:45 |
| W.J. McCaskill | It's because those people were forced out of their homes because they couldn't pay the tax. When the bank closed up on their money, once the bank closed up on their money, they didn't get that money. They didn't have anything to operate, so they had to borrow money. They borrowed that money, a person took advantage of that opportunity, foreclosed, and of course they didn't have the money. | 24:46 |
| Jackson Brown | That's right. | 25:09 |
| W.J. McCaskill | And that's how this community is mixed up now. It wasn't because of negligence. It wasn't because we quit cooperating together. It was because of the circumstances that came about in time and history. And we became victims of those circumstances. And many of the Black people that owned their property in this community, some of them lost a farm for $300. | 25:11 |
| Jackson Brown | That's true. | 25:38 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Some less. | 25:39 |
| Jackson Brown | That's true. | 25:40 |
| W.J. McCaskill | And they never were able to regain it because, from personal experience, I know—I don't know if I ought to put this in there, but I know from personal experience. See, my father died when I was seven years old. My father was a self-contractor. He was a carpenter. And my father had money in the bank. He had good insurance. He had his farm paid for, all the livestock. | 25:41 |
| W.J. McCaskill | But when this law became in effect, the bank closed up on my mother's money. My father didn't leave any will, so it probably was our property. My mother couldn't borrow any money. That's the reason why we didn't lose ours. My mother couldn't borrow money. We got hungry. I mean, real hungry. And that's the reason why we had to move into another community for four years. | 26:09 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Well, you see, I know from experience what caused many of the Black people to lose their property in this community. Because they never did get that money back. My mother never did get that money back what my father had. All the money that my mother hadn't used that my father had already had in the bank, plus the insurance money, all of that, they closed up on that money. My mother never did get that money back. | 26:37 |
| W.J. McCaskill | And we had to suffer. I stayed out of school four years on account of that. Didn't attend a day. But now we went through that struggle and this community still stayed together. And it's together now. In the past events, we'll tell you, and then we don't have to go back no 100 years. Her son was elected supervisor of District 2. And they tried their schemes and they finally ousted him out of the office. But the first scheme they tried, the bond company got off his bond— | 27:05 |
| Jackson Brown | That's right. | 27:45 |
| W.J. McCaskill | —and we went to him and talked with him. And I asked him personally, "Is there anything we can do, Mr. Moore?" He said, "I'll let you know in a few days." In a few days, they passed around the papers to sign. We were putting up our property for bond. And while he needed $350,000 worth of bond, we went over it. And then they had a hearing, as if we had committed a crime. They had a hearing. We went down and we had—They started as if you committed a crime. They started around 9:00 in the morning and when they called your name and you started up, they asked you to stop and raise your right hand. "You solemnly swear you'll tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?" | 27:46 |
| W.J. McCaskill | And then they said, "Take the witness stand. You take the witness stand." They asked you, "What's your name? Where do you live? Give me the directions to your house. Give me directions—Give us a legal description of your property. Give us the value of it," and all those kinds of questions. They cross-examined you and asked you who you owed and who you worked for. | 28:42 |
| Jackson Brown | Oh yeah. | 29:00 |
| W.J. McCaskill | And that went along all day, trying to bluff us. But we still stayed together and then they had to try another scheme. The last scheme they tried, it was unfair. Went to affairs court but it still went through. | 29:02 |
| Jackson Brown | Yeah, it went through. | 29:19 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Any man at some time, him and his wife aren't going to get along. Mr. Moore's wife and him got in a little struggle and she did like the average woman would do. She went to Greenwood. He did what I did. He went there and tried to get her. And they said that he was living over there. When he got his wife, he came back home, right where he was born, right here. | 29:24 |
| Jackson Brown | That's right. | 29:44 |
| W.J. McCaskill | And they still loused him out and said he wasn't living in the district, so he couldn't maintain that office. | 29:45 |
| Jackson Brown | That's right. | 29:54 |
| W.J. McCaskill | And then they gave us somebody. They hand-picked us somebody. I don't have anything against the man, but now we know what we want. We didn't only vote for him. We put up our property for him. And they gave us somebody else to carry out his term and then when they carried out his term, then he ran. Mr. Mull ran. And he lost by a few votes. But next time, he won. | 29:55 |
| Jackson Brown | Hell yeah. | 30:26 |
| W.J. McCaskill | They arrested his mama. They arrested everybody that they could and said that it was voter's fraud. They arrested everybody they could. And one morning, a lady called me. She said, "Grandpa McCaskill—" I can't set a date for this. Lady called me and said, "Grandpa McCaskill." She said, "I want you to go down to the jailhouse and buy my daughter out." Said, "They got her on voter's fraud." I said, "I'll be down there in a few minutes." This is how we stand together. We might be defeated, but when we go down, we're going down together. | 30:27 |
| Jackson Brown | Yeah. | 31:01 |
| W.J. McCaskill | And this community knows it. Greenwood knows it. The State of Mississippi knows it. We're together and we're going to be together. And this is how we have made progress, because that house divided within itself, it can't stand. | 31:02 |
| Jackson Brown | It can't stand. Amen. | 31:25 |
| Doris Dixon | You said, what is the progress that's been made? | 31:25 |
| W.J. McCaskill | We have the same supervisor that we put up our property, you know— | 31:30 |
| Jackson Brown | That's right. | 31:33 |
| Doris Dixon | Okay. I'm— | 31:33 |
| W.J. McCaskill | We have him as supervisor and we're making progress. This community looks better than it ever looked in the whole history of all the time I've lived here, and I've been here all of my life. | 31:36 |
| Jackson Brown | Yes, brother. | 31:46 |
| Doris Dixon | Well, tell me how it used to look. Sorry, I don't know. I mean, tell me how it's changed from— | 31:47 |
| W.J. McCaskill | It was not upgraded. It was not taken care as well as it is. It was trees and things. You couldn't see that highway, that railroad, before he was elected. There was trash all up and down the highway. | 31:53 |
| Jackson Brown | This old, dirty road out there, the fact that he'd sprinkle a little gravel on it. But finally when he got it, he blacktopped it all the way down [indistinct 00:32:18]. | 32:08 |
| W.J. McCaskill | See, and this community has been together to this point, so we have a community club here. And whatever we think that is best for this community, when we meet, we meet and we stand together and we agree together and we send the results to the proper place. That's how we got this blacktop that you see. | 32:18 |
| Doris Dixon | Right. When was the road, when was the asphalt laid? When was the road constructed? | 32:45 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Well, the first one, Clarence Road was constructed, I can't give to you. Can you, Mrs. Moore? | 32:53 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | Mm-mmm. | 33:00 |
| W.J. McCaskill | It was from this blacktop here all the way down. That was probably 20 years ago or better. | 33:00 |
| Jackson Brown | Probably that long, yeah. | 33:09 |
| W.J. McCaskill | But now the way we got it, we had a White supervisor, but this community club met and we discussed it and we sent a petition signed by everybody in this community to this supervisor. And he was talking about this thing and that thing. And I told him, I said, "Now—" We told him. We said, "Now, the road is wide enough that you could make it wide." And they just kept talking this talk and I told him, "There's different strokes for different folks." | 33:10 |
| W.J. McCaskill | And we got it. And that's how we got it, is because of togetherness. We had a petition and we sent a committee. The club sent a committee with that petition and we were hurried. And that's how we got it. Now we didn't have this problem for the blacktop that came from— | 33:50 |
| Jackson Brown | No. | 34:08 |
| W.J. McCaskill | —this blacktop down past my house, because we had a man that was concerned about the community. He was born and raised in this community, her son, Mr. Robert Mull. And he wanted the best for that community and he's still working the best for that community. And I'll tell you another thing. I believe if he lived to be 90 years old, we're going to still say, "And we want him as supervisor," because of the work that he's done. And because we can work together. | 34:08 |
| Jackson Brown | Yeah. | 34:27 |
| W.J. McCaskill | That's the reason why. | 34:27 |
| Doris Dixon | Okay. And then in order for whoever's listening to this tape to understand how you work together today, they need a window into how you worked together in the past. You mentioned the way they constructed the well. Can you give me other examples of how people pulled together, how people shared back in those days? | 34:27 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Yeah. | 34:58 |
| Jackson Brown | Well, yes. The old peoples, they shared and [indistinct 00:35:03] together. How he said, "Together we stand, and divided we fall," the old pals, they pulled together. They built together, and that caused us children— | 34:58 |
| W.J. McCaskill | You already have on record how I told you about how we furnished—In other words, the old people, they built the school. They built the well. They furnished part of the fuel that was needed through the winter, because they selected that day that they would get together. And they hauled wood— | 35:16 |
| Jackson Brown | That's right. | 35:41 |
| W.J. McCaskill | —to the school. The county only furnished coal but not enough— | 35:42 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | That's right. | 35:47 |
| W.J. McCaskill | —whatever they furnished, and we had to supplement the rest. | 35:48 |
| Jackson Brown | Yeah. | 35:51 |
| W.J. McCaskill | You understand? This was a togetherness. We have been together for protection and for provision. And when I said protection, we were concerned about one another. We didn't have any problem with our children going over, violating on somebody else. Everybody was concerned about the lawliness that could come into our community. | 35:52 |
| Doris Dixon | You mean White people from the surrounding parts? | 36:22 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Every time we were concerned. | 36:24 |
| Doris Dixon | But I mean about who coming in? | 36:28 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Now what I'm talking about, we were concerned about the lawliness of our own people. | 36:30 |
| Doris Dixon | Okay. I understand. | 36:36 |
| W.J. McCaskill | You have to say, we can't—There is no togetherness where people are lawless. You understand? In order for people to be together, the first thing, everybody has got to teach themselves to be trustworthy. You understand? If you don't trust me, then we can't unite, so we saw to it. If I went to another parent's house to play with their child. If I came back with a marble and my daddy knows that he didn't buy a marble that color, my daddy asked me, "Why you've got that marble?" If I said, "I found it." He'd say, "Carry it back where you found it and put it right back there and come home." And if I'd said, "My friend loaned it to me," he told me, "Carry it back to your friend." And it didn't make any difference what time of day, what time of night- | 36:37 |
| Jackson Brown | That's right. | 37:29 |
| W.J. McCaskill | —you just didn't come home. And so we saw to it. The parents saw to it that this unity was maintained, would be maintained. It would continue because we sought to doing right. First, we're going to see that we do right. This right is going to begin with me, and my family is going to have to do it. My son couldn't go to Brother Brown's house and come back with a toy and play with it in the yard and I see it and I know I didn't buy it. And if you found some money, if nobody is with you, you better carry the money back where you found it. | 37:30 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | That's right. | 38:09 |
| W.J. McCaskill | And so that— | 38:09 |
| Jackson Brown | That is so true. | 38:09 |
| W.J. McCaskill | See, that's the way. That's the way we could continue to work together and have this unity that I'm talking about, because everybody was concerned, first about themselves and then about their fellow man. And if you're concerned about yourself to the point that you're going to keep yourself right, then you can extend that concern to your fellow man. | 38:14 |
| Jackson Brown | That's right. | 38:33 |
| W.J. McCaskill | But it begins with yourself. And this was the spirit of this community and still is the spirit. | 38:34 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | Yes. Yeah, I'd like to relate an experience that I had when I was a little girl. I went to play with some of my friends, and Miss Rosa Parker, and I picked up a comb. People used to wear hair combs in their hair. I picked up the comb and carried it home. When I got home with it, my mother asked me, "Where'd you get that comb from?" I told her. She said, "But why'd you bring it here?" What did I tell her? I don't know what I told her. "Miss Rosa said I could bring it home"? What'd I tell her? | 38:39 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | Anyway, she said, "Well, you get right in front of me," and it was night, and she marched me all the way back up to Miss Rosa's house and carried that comb back. And she gave me a whipping after I got back home. And that was the end of that. But that just is what happened. | 39:08 |
| Jackson Brown | That's true. | 39:43 |
| W.J. McCaskill | I remember once, my mother had a niece. She was named Sally Selver. That'd be a long, long time ago. And her husband, he would fix shoes. And they were renting out our house. They carried my shoes out. [indistinct 00:39:47]. I carried them over there and fixed them. He fixed the shoes. My mother said, "Go over there to Sally's house and get your shoes." I went over there. Wasn't but [indistinct 00:40:01]. I went over there to get the shoes. He wasn't there, but she was there. My cousin Sally was there. And she said, "Yeah, your shoes are done. I'll get them." Well, there was a nickel down in the other shoe. An old buffalo nickel. I got it and put it in my pocket. | 39:48 |
| W.J. McCaskill | I went back to the house, playing with it, and my mom was like, "What's that?" I said, "Oh, I found it." She said, "Oh, you found it? Whereabouts? Let me see it. I'll see it." It wasn't rusty and it wasn't nothing. She said, "No, you didn't find it. Where'd you get that?" I said, "I got this nickel, I got it from this shoe. And she said, "Well, wait a minute. I'm not going to [indistinct 00:40:35]. So now you carry it back." They called her Kit. "You carry it back—" [indistinct 00:40:41] because wasn't there. "You carry it back and tell her you stole it." | 40:14 |
| W.J. McCaskill | And man, that's the hardest thing I ever tried to you. She said, "You'd better tell her you stole it." Course I'm going to ask her once. (laughs) And I told her I stole it and she said, "Well, go back and tell Aunt [indistinct 00:40:56] to not whoop you any more." I said, "Well, the nickel was in the shoe. I knew in there, but you sure got it." She said, "but tell [indistinct 00:41:01] not to whoop you anymore." She knew I was whooped because I was crying and going on. But still I had to go back. It made me not want to pick up stuff [indistinct 00:41:12]. | 40:48 |
| Jackson Brown | Yes, and as I said, I didn't get a chance to tell you that my daddy, he came here from Virginia. My mother, she was born here with her father, old man [indistinct 00:41:38]. They came from Columbus, Georgia. He was following his wife. She was Lucinda. Lucinda Kimber. But he followed her when she married him, she [indistinct 00:41:57]. She was following her people and my grandfather followed her and he left Georgia and left his mother there, father, and his sisters and brothers and never did go back there no more. | 41:24 |
| Jackson Brown | And he died in '44 when he was 110 years old. He passed in '44. And I said I, if I ever got where I could, I aimed to up and went back through up there in Georgia somewhere in Columbus and see, could I find his old sisters up there, his old ancestors? None of them, but some of the branch off from them. But I haven't got a chance to go yet. | 42:11 |
| Doris Dixon | Now your mother's people came here from Georgia? | 42:38 |
| Jackson Brown | Yeah. Her father. | 42:43 |
| Doris Dixon | Her father. | 42:43 |
| Jackson Brown | And her mother. And they brought, they told me, four children with them. Her brother was named Milo. That's a good name, boy. And there's one named Edwin. And my Auntie Sally Jackson. He brought them with them and he never did go back. | 42:50 |
| Doris Dixon | Now when they came, did they settled on someone else's farm? Were they sharecropping or renting or did they buy— | 43:04 |
| Jackson Brown | Oh, yeah. I imagine they was, I imagine they was. That would've been a long time ago. They told me they moved over here around [indistinct 00:43:19], went around sharecropping. That's why they landed there and when he stopped. By and by, my granddaddy and all of them moved back out here and moved back on top of the hill there where the old [indistinct 00:43:29] on the old [indistinct 00:43:29] base. Right there, I mean. But my mother was born over there across, over there around [indistinct 00:43:29] over there. That's about, I reckon, four or five miles northwest of Greenwood here, on 49. Yeah. [indistinct 00:43:29] so she said, so they moved out here. But she was a good one— | 43:10 |
| Doris Dixon | And that place, were they sharecropping out there? | 43:30 |
| Jackson Brown | Yes. I imagine they were. I imagine they were. But my mama said she was a girl when they laid the railroad track here. The railroad track here, that was a long time ago. She was about 104, 105 years old. She died in '80, my mother. | 44:01 |
| Doris Dixon | Most people in this part were farmers. | 44:23 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Yes. | 44:24 |
| Doris Dixon | Was it renting and sharecropping or owning? What was their— | 44:27 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Most people in this community owned. And that was some Black people that lived in community that sharecropped with some of the Black people that owned property in this community. Yeah. And that goes back, again, to how we have been able to work together. We did. | 44:31 |
| Jackson Brown | My father, how he was telling you about the Depression that came on, 1920 my daddy bought 80 acres of land, I reckon about three miles south of here. In 1920. And that was the year they elected President Hoover for president. Cotton sold real good then, but he was a [indistinct 00:45:20] man. But he bought 80 acres of land down there, and he got a lawyer somehow. Thank God, man. It was such a time. And he of course gave him a clear path. He paid for the land. He did build a house down there. It was about a six-room house. But then he bought the lumber cash, and paid the carpenters to build the house. And he stayed there about, I reckon, 40 years. | 44:53 |
| Jackson Brown | The Depression came on in the '30s and for president, they elected Hoover in the year '28. He took his seat '29. In '29, [indistinct 00:46:08] lot of cotton and meat and corn and everything and how many people [indistinct 00:46:16]. But then the lawyer gave him a raw deal. [indistinct 00:46:22]. He didn't look and see, sent something right through Texas with all the land. And the preacher had to come on. The bottom had fallen out. Bankers set up on all of their money— | 45:49 |
| Doris Dixon | Okay. | 0:03 |
| Jackson Brown | And they had money in the bank, that's all they did. The bank done shut up because of it. Didn't have money to pay their taxes, crawled up the line, of which was $300, couldn't borrow it. Went to Frank Gardner and told him about it, he was a lawyer. He the one said to [indistinct 00:00:22] "Well, John, I overlooked it. I overlooked it. I didn't see it. And so here are some back taxes, and income taxes, and they got to be paid." "What happens if I don't have the money?" He recommended to a lady called Mary Johnson. Boy, she didn't pay the money. Close my eyes. | 0:05 |
| Jackson Brown | Next year, the cotton had that went out in tenths of a pound, couldn't pay again. Next year couldn't pay the $300.00. Kept on, kept on, kept on, kept on like that every year, every year. So he just decided he would just—1948, 1938 he decided he'd just give it up, give it up. He relocated across, over there on the air base. Stayed there about three years, turned it into four years, government taking that. Then we bought it over here, right here in Browning. | 0:38 |
| Jackson Brown | But that's the way the White folks will do you. They get you in debt. Then when they get you in debt, then they'll close up on you, they know you ain't got the money to pay yet, then they close the deal on you. And then there's a lot of people lose their land on that account, don't have no money. And knew they couldn't pay it back. And then, wouldn't allow them no chance, "Got to have my money, or your property warrant." They got the deal. That was it. That was it. | 1:17 |
| Doris Dixon | Mrs. Moore, could you tell me something about your family? | 1:57 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | My family? We were born, as I told you, when we were born, I was born in Carroll County just across the line, and my mother was named Maddy Lou Willis and my father was named Dave Willis. And he passed in 1929, and we lived up there on a plantation, but this man, he was a little different from most plantation owners. He would let us go to school. And now, as we grew up, and got larger, we'd always work to help our mother because weren't nobody at home but the three of us, and after we attended this Browning Elementary School. And after we finished there, we started going to high school, down to Greenwood on Stone Street, which was about, I guess it was about eight miles. Is that right, Reverend Brown? | 1:58 |
| Jackson Brown | Mm-hmm. | 3:10 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | —from up county line. | 3:10 |
| Jackson Brown | Yeah. | 3:10 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | —About eight miles. And we didn't have no transportation but walk. | 3:11 |
| Jackson Brown | That's right. | 3:14 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | So we had to walk every morning to school and back in the afternoon, but there was an old man that worked downtown. And he, his heart I guess was a little different from some of the others. Some days, he would let us ride. He had a truck. He'd go to work every morning. Some days he'd let us ride. Then again, he wouldn't, he'd just pass on by us. And, so that's the way we got to high school. And after we finished high school, I got married in 1940. | 3:15 |
| Doris Dixon | Mm-hmm. | 3:51 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | And I moved on down in this community then, and, oh, I went to, I attended Mississippi Valley. Now Alcorn College had extension courses. And I attended that. And then, and they, this building, the Mississippi Valley State University. And we was going to school, and the old, in that recreation center you—Have you been there? Well, it's a recreation center that they have now. They used, they had the old— | 3:52 |
| Doris Dixon | In Itta Bena? | 4:24 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | In Itta Bena. | 4:25 |
| Doris Dixon | Okay, the Brazil Center? | 4:25 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | Yeah, the Brazil Center. | 4:26 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | That was the school where the, we attended for Valley State for a long time. We went over there. They have classes there at night, and we would go over at night to classes. And I finished, oh, Valley State, I got my BS degree in '55. I think it was '55. And we was—I was teaching too in the daytime. And I'd come home in the afternoon and go to the field and help work. | 4:28 |
| Doris Dixon | Mm—hmm. | 5:01 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | We had a farm, and I had, I was the mother of three children, one daughter and two sons, which was Robert and Charles, and we lost the little girl. We lost her in '43. And I worked in this county from—I've started again at Browning Elementary School, and I taught there, first grade for a while, and they sent me from there to Whaley. And from there to the Pig Stand. Anyway, I'm—From there, I came back, and we, years later they built the Elzy Elementary School. | 5:02 |
| Doris Dixon | Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. | 5:50 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | And there, I worked there at the Elzy Elementary School a while. And after they built the Rising Sun Elementary School, they transferred me over there to Rising Sun in the same county. And there I stayed until I retired. I retired in '84, and my husband passed in '83, and I retired in '84. | 5:51 |
| Doris Dixon | You mentioned a Browning Elementary School that you taught in at one point. Is this the same school? | 6:18 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | The same school. | 6:19 |
| Doris Dixon | Okay, and had it expanded by that point or? | 6:20 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | Oh, well, it, it was. It was just about the same. But the older teacher retired, I think, and they hired me. But it was about the same. It had four, just four, four teachers. That's it. Okay? | 6:25 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Yeah, in proportion it was about the same, but you can remember that after Professor Hilton became principal— | 6:40 |
| Jackson Brown | That's right. | 6:48 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | Oh, yeah, they did. | 6:48 |
| W.J. McCaskill | —in 1937. | 6:52 |
| Doris Dixon | Mm-hmm. | 6:54 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Then it was changed to, uh— | 6:54 |
| Jackson Brown | Vocation— | 6:59 |
| W.J. McCaskill | —uh, Agriculture, the Vocation of Agriculture. | 6:59 |
| Jackson Brown | Mm-hmm. | 7:01 |
| W.J. McCaskill | And, and that was added with, teacher were added, and then, we, we had a community club back in that time. And that community club was, was uh, working together. We, we had our own canning plant. | 7:02 |
| Jackson Brown | Yeah. | 7:18 |
| W.J. McCaskill | You know, how we can food and, and the club bought registered hawk. | 7:18 |
| Jackson Brown | Yeah. | 7:36 |
| W.J. McCaskill | —and a registered bull. | 7:36 |
| Doris Dixon | Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. | 7:37 |
| W.J. McCaskill | You know, [indistinct 00:07:38] are register, and, and we serviced the community serves, you know, they'll, they'll stock from, from, use the registered stock that the, that the club bought. And there were other activities that the club was really concerned about, and told that they'd be well fair of everybody that lived in this community. | 7:37 |
| Doris Dixon | Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. | 7:59 |
| W.J. McCaskill | This, this, this, it was called The Browning Community Club at that time. | 7:59 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | Yeah. | 8:03 |
| W.J. McCaskill | You know. I served as secretary when I came out of World War II, of that club for a number of years. | 8:03 |
| Jackson Brown | In other words, had blacksmiths shop and canning— | 8:08 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Yeah. | 8:08 |
| Jackson Brown | —outfit and all of that like that back then. | 8:08 |
| Doris Dixon | Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. | 8:08 |
| Jackson Brown | —you know, and blacksmith shop [indistinct 00:08:21]. Go and have something done to your plows and something. You paid men to work in the shop who did that. | 8:21 |
| Doris Dixon | Mm-hmm. You mentioned you, you told me about when Robert Moore ran for supervisor. When did people start voting in this part of Mississippi? | 8:36 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Now, in 19—In '54, I registered. | 8:43 |
| Doris Dixon | Okay. | 8:43 |
| W.J. McCaskill | That were long before the— | 8:43 |
| Doris Dixon | The Voting Rights Act. | 8:43 |
| W.J. McCaskill | —Freedom Movement. | 9:01 |
| Jackson Brown | That's right. | 9:02 |
| W.J. McCaskill | At that time, the requirement was you had to pay your poll tax. I went down to the courthouse and paid my real estate tax. It wasn't compulsory to pay your poll tax, but if you wanted to register, you had to pay it. So that were one of the requirements, so I told them that I wanted to pay my poll tax. And the lady, she said, "It's going to cost you two dollars." I handed her two dollars. She wrote me a receipt for two dollars, and then, I ask her, I said, "Where do you go to register?" And the county sheriff was standing in the office. And he said, "If you know where to go pay your poll tax, you ought to know where to go to register." And the lady gave me a facial experience, a sign. And I stood. And he was so angry until he went back in his office. And she whispered and told me, "Go downstairs." | 9:03 |
| W.J. McCaskill | I went downstairs, and it was a large White lady. And you could tell that she was a poor person, like me, because the way she dressed and the way her hair looked. And she should have weighed over 200 pounds. And she was sitting at a big table. I said, "I came to register." And I handed the poll tax receipt. And she said, "Boy, can you recite the Constitution of the United States?" I said, "No ma'am, I can't recite the Constitution of the United States." I said, "But I can read it, and interpret it." So she opened the book, and I signed. And that's when I registered in 1954. | 10:06 |
| W.J. McCaskill | During that time, it was very few Blacks was registered. We had mostly among our educators, but I didn't know my way home. I just know what I wanted to do. And later on, before the Freedom Movement, I was solicited the first time to appear in court. And when I went out there, I was the only Black person, and they began to screen out, ask different questions and find out how you could get off. You didn't have to be in. | 10:53 |
| W.J. McCaskill | They finally put me on standby, but I was the only person. And I was discriminated when I went there. I got there soon that morning, and I went to the high sheriff and told him my purpose there. And he told me, "Have a seat back there on that back seat in the courtroom." And I sit down. Then, when he started interviewing us, he called me from back there. And after, there was no ground for me to be disqualified. And he sent me to the room by the rest in that group. And I sit with them. And I'm the only Black there, and they had all the wealthy White people, [indistinct 00:12:34] and lawyers and different thing. They were subpoenaed. And I'm sitting with them. The sheriff came in that was in authority of us. | 11:48 |
| W.J. McCaskill | He came in and told me, he said, "We gonna bring some more in, and this other group. You all are group two. We gonna bring in group number one." He said, "I want you to take a seat on the back there." And then, he showed me a seat in the back of the room. I didn't say anything. I got up and took that seat. And they treated him so cold. Everybody else treated him so cold, all the other Whites treated him so cold. Until he didn't ask me to do it anymore. When we were moved, when this jury was moved, when we got a recess and had to come back in, I sat with the rest of the jury. I was the first juryman, I believe, first juror, Black, in Leflore County that was solicited for jury duty. And I was the only there, and this sheriff tried to segregate me from the rest of them, 'cause they were White. | 12:55 |
| W.J. McCaskill | And all those other jurymans, they were very prominent people and had authority in the city, the best men [indistinct 00:14:11]. The jurymen were from there. They had lawyers on there, and I'm the only fellow that didn't know his way home. But I was still there, and I wouldn't disqualify myself. So I was on standby. I got paid. That was before this movement. And when this movement started, I know how it started. When it first started, we were meeting in homes. Maybe it wouldn't be over 25 or 30. And then, after that, we started meeting in churches and it was a whole lot of fear during those times. | 13:55 |
| W.J. McCaskill | And we endured a whole lot of harassment. And I played an active part as far as it was possible, because I'm the father of seven children. And I raised six from my sister. That's 13 children. And I ain't never had to go to jail yet now. And I don't have a child that looked for a job two weeks. So I ain't have no problem. But anyway, he'd limit my time, but I was in the Meredith March from Tougaloo to Jackson. I was in that march. I've been on the stage with Dr. King and many times shook hands with him. And other, Abernathy, and other stood right with us. Believe it, I've been there, and I know what was goin down. I know what we had, the experience to get where we are. And I know what we have to be sorry for now. Our people asked for something that they don't want. | 14:50 |
| Jackson Brown | Sure have. Sure the truth. | 16:08 |
| W.J. McCaskill | That's the problem now. The problem now, if other communities was unified as well as this community, we would be much better off. We would have something to offer ourselves and someone else. But you're very limited in what you can offer when they have no unit. You're very limited in what you can offer. | 16:08 |
| W.J. McCaskill | We have climbed the intellectual ladder to the highest heights. You understand. We got people who can stand anywhere, if they ain't too tall. But because we are not united, we can't work together in unity. Some of those people that stand on top of the ladder cannot offer anybody a job. Had to look to somebody else for a job. And we spend time complaining about the other person who had provided a job for himself and his family, because he won't give us a job. We ought to unite and create a job for ourself and have one offer for somebody else. | 16:33 |
| W.J. McCaskill | See, I know why we are falling short. There's two places we've fallen short. We don't have enough real estate. And we don't have no jobs to offer nobody. That's why we've fallen short. You can read history from beginning to end, no nation has ever fought for money. Ain't never fought for cars. They're fighting for land. That's what nations fight for. That's what's what most important in this age, is land. We need some real estate. And without that, we're nowhere. That's the reason why our children stays in jail. | 17:19 |
| W.J. McCaskill | It told you about that bond I laid out. It didn't cost me a penny. I signed a real estate bond. And that's the reason why we need it. We need some real estate. Our children gonna stay in jail 'cause we got nothing to bond out with. The other man, didn't cost his child, ain't doing anything, he got some real estate. Boy get in jail, he can call his friend, "Go down there and bond my son out." He got two or three thousand acres of land, he go down there and sign the papers. Ain't nobody have no money. | 18:13 |
| W.J. McCaskill | See, and as long as we ain't got no jobs to offer ourselves, we ain't got offer nobody else. And you ain't got nothing to trade. You gotta have something to trade now. If you ain't got nothing to trade, you gotta accept what the person give you. You can't bargain if you got nothing to trade. You don't have anything to bargain with. | 18:37 |
| Doris Dixon | And it was different back in the day? Things were different? | 18:59 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Yeah, our people had more to bargain with back in those days, until this crisis came in the 30s. Because they had that money. Our people, back there, you know, a whole lot of time we young folk, we think we smarter than them. They didn't know their way home. They couldn't sign their name. They didn't know any [indistinct 00:19:23] left. But I tell you one thing, they didn't have to go and borrow no money to buy a new car. | 19:04 |
| Jackson Brown | No. | 19:28 |
| W.J. McCaskill | And they had land. They had a job for to offer their children. Now why. | 19:28 |
| Jackson Brown | That's all right. That's all right. One thing about the children now, they aren't doing nothing. Lots of them now. Lots of them now it's just a routine. What the town's leaving for. A lot of them don't work. They'd rather walk off from here and go to Chicago, or Detroit, or California, somewhere, and just leave it here. They don't want it. They don't want—That's old time stuff. They don't want no property, now, [indistinct 00:20:03] was coming up. They don't want it. I don't know why. But they let their old home place go to wreck. They ain't staying. Nobody. Lots of them now, don't [indistinct 00:20:18] people. They don't care. | 19:40 |
| Jackson Brown | I remember I was working, that was in the 60s, when these Freedom Riders come through. That's was back in the 60s. I was working at a [indistinct 00:20:33] down there. Utilities. Dr. King, he came, and the White folks didn't want you to even look out on them marching through town. Call them downtown agitators. "If they speak to you, don't speak to them. Don't be seen with those downtown agitators walking along with your womens, holding their hands. Then the White girls walking along with the Black holding their hands. Don't speak to them, don't look at them when they pass. And when Dr. King, you know, would get chance to speak, in Greenwood, there. Don't y'all go down. I would have liked being at that. Don't y'all go down there and fool around, 'cause you do, you won't have no jobs." | 20:21 |
| Jackson Brown | Now they had some people working, their only job now, somehow was seeing Blacks. They out watching. Go down, at the church, or wherever else he gonna speak at, watch and see who were all going to be there, working on the job. Even ban [indistinct 00:21:47] down there. Some of them go down there and watch and see who there, then go back and tell him. Then you go, you ain't got no job. | 21:22 |
| Jackson Brown | My wife was hauling farm laborers. Sometime making 100, 125 dollars a day hauling farm laborers over, picking cotton and chopping, and like that. She kept me away from home. Oh, I didn't have too much to do. I'd ride around with some of them, we hunting for trouble, you know, a water leak or streets broke in, we'd get down and carry it in and have a crew come fix it. He got angry with me. My wife said, "They tell me that they bringing a lot of clothes here, a lot of different stuff here. Do you care if I go up there to [indistinct 00:22:44] on Howard Street and just see? Ain't nothing I want now, I ain't got to have nothing, but I just want to go up there and see." I said, "Help yourself, you're grown." She [indistinct 00:22:54]. She went up there. | 21:58 |
| Jackson Brown | Whatever she want it, she got it, I don't know. Was not that much. Then, after that, took all of them name. Then they got to march up to the courthouse. March up there and [indistinct 00:23:17]. And if they did it, all right, you gotta do the paper. Everyone of them go up there to sign the paper, and they got their name and their paper. So I [indistinct 00:23:26]. One of them came by and called me, I came out. "What's your wife's name?" All of them know my wife. I said, "She name Annie." "Annie, what?" I said, "Annie Brown." "Annie Brown, that's her name?" I told 'em, "Yeah, that's her name." | 22:58 |
| Jackson Brown | So they went and told the boss man. He came round, "Jackson, sit down. You out seeing why your wife went up there and march and registered to vote. Did you tell her to do that?" I said, "No, I ain't told her." "Fact is that I see the marching upstairs with some of them downtown agitators, and here he sitting upstairs." I said, "She was, yeah. Take my pistol and go up there and shoot her." "No, I ain't got to do that." "Yeah, but this my pistol, take it and go up and shoot her then send it back up. Then you won't have to worry about nothing." "Man, I don't need your pistol." I said, "If I need a pistol I can go up here to the hardware," I said, "I can have anything I want up there. I don't need it." "Are you crazy?" | 23:47 |
| Jackson Brown | "I ain't send my wife up there." I said, "Was she trying to [indistinct 00:24:20]?" "No." I said, "Well, there ain't nothing wrong, she's doing what she want to do." I said, "I ain't bothered about that. When we married we didn't marry to fight or push one another. We married to live on a certain basis." I said, "No she went because she wanted to go." Okay. She went up there and voted. "If you say you couldn't help it, we'll let you work on. But if you don't by means, you ain't got no job." I said, "Oh, it don't mean a difference." | 24:20 |
| Jackson Brown | I worked on that week, about two weeks long, and I worked that Sunday. That Sunday, the third Sunday, my parents were here, I worked that Sunday. Waited on til Friday, and crossed the river over there. I mean, stopping a water leak over there, putting a clamp on a pipe over there. I heard the radio on the truck come in, tell "Bring Jackson Brown in." | 24:58 |
| Jackson Brown | I had on boots, I got them boots off, and get my shoes out the truck and put on. "What you doing?" I said, "I'm getting ready to go." He said, "Why?" I said, "I heard them told you to bring me in." 'Cause that Friday was payday. Head man up there. I went to the office, "I just want my check." "We ain't got your check. We ain't got it." I said, "Why?" "'Cause we ain't got it." I said, "Well, today's payday." "Well, we ain't got the check." | 25:23 |
| Jackson Brown | So, I said, "George William got it." I said "George William?" Yeah. Well you see, I got paid from the city hall, not the county, at the court house. I waited till after lunch, I wanted to have my check. "You Jackson?" I said, "Yes sir." He said, "I tell you, I don't know what they sent your check up here for, but they garnished you." "Garnishing my check? For what?" "They said you owe something at a big store here in Greenwood." I said, "I don't owe no so and so nothing." Oh just real mad. Said, "You owe that big store down there on Carroll Avenue." I said, "I don't owe no so and so nothing." "Man, you gotta give me $14 before you can get it." I said, "Well, I ain't got it." I had seven dollars. | 25:53 |
| Jackson Brown | So I went on back downtown, and when I got down there to town there, my wife had come. She had sold, I believe, 5 bale of cotton. "So how come you off of work?" I said, "Well, 'cause it's a fine I gotta go pay them my check. They got it garnished." "For what?" I said, "I don't know." But you see, she had been hauling some different [indistinct 00:27:13] stuff from the stores up there. And the old Chinese woman, she come out there and get cauliflowers or whatever vegetable she see she wanted, they was Chinese. And so she'd get some milk for my son, he in Detroit, Jimmy, the baby. And she got, I don't know, several cans of milk. But she owe about $7, and they go garnishing me. Said I was responsible for that. But I didn't know like I did now. Hell I had a lawyer get my check. He got my check, and I went ahead home. I got it. | 26:46 |
| Jackson Brown | I went back up there. Said, "Jackson." Said, "We need you to come back to work." I said, "No, I ain't coming back. I ain't coming back." My wife said, "No, don't go back. Don't go back." | 27:49 |
| Jackson Brown | I never could see good. Well Dr. [indistinct 00:28:05], he examined my eye. He said, "How long you been working for the city?" I said, "Oh, a long time now, 18, 19 years." He said, "Well, I'm gonna tell you, you ought to put the suit to rest, then you work out here on these streets in case [indistinct 00:28:19]. No, [indistinct 00:28:21] you see there." I said, "Well, I won't do that." Man, he paid now. [indistinct 00:28:28] now. I didn't never go back to work there. No, I didn't go back to work. | 27:58 |
| Doris Dixon | Let me ask you, all three, a concluding question. When you think back to the old days, back to Browning, who should be remembered? The younger—Who should they know about, that you remember, that's no longer here? Do you get what I mean? Who really was important, as far as keeping the community together, the unity you mentioned? What are the names of the people that should be remembered? | 28:36 |
| W.J. McCaskill | If I go back to my time, the person that I was inspired to the greatest degree by was Mrs. Clotilde Thomas, the principal of Browning school, and professor Hilton, who succeeds her in the same office. Those are people in my time that I would always remember. And it's because of the relationship and what they did to help me. My brother, that I was helping to support my mother, got married '41, and all the responsibility of the family fell on me. And Mrs. Clotilde was my teacher, and she allowed me to send my assignments in the school every day. And she would grade them, and send them back to me, and send me assignments for the next day. And I could go out, in other words, I could continue to do the farm work, and haul in the wood, and everything. And that allowed my five sisters to go to school. | 29:10 |
| W.J. McCaskill | But for two years, that's the way I completed one grade, to have promoted from one grade to another. Is by teaching up to me like that. And any time, any time of day I could go to school, and I wouldn't be late 'till like the rain come, and I couldn't worry. And other than that, she'd send for me whenever was a test, whenever she was gonna give an exam she'd send for me. | 30:37 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Professor Hilton, he was quite an inspiration 'cause he always, he didn't just teach us agricultury, the heart of agriculture, but he taught us how to stay out of trouble too, and how to earn a living. And I could go back to an experience that meant very much to me. One year, he advised every student in agriculture class to take a project. I chose sweet potatoes. I didn't have any money to buy potatoes to bed out, to draw the plants to transplant. I didn't have the money to buy the plants to transplant. So one day, I was walking the road, and the man that was supervising the county farm, White man, his name was—I don't know what his name was, but they called him Calvin Leery. Might have been named Mr. Leery. I don't know what— | 31:04 |
| Jackson Brown | Lacy. I think. I think it was Lacy Leery. | 32:08 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Well anyway, I was meeting him, and he was in a pickup, and I was walking, and I flagged him. I introduced myself, I said, "My name is W.J. McCaskill. I'm Jim McCaskill's son, my mother's a widow." And I told him about the project that I was encouraged to take, and that I didn't have any money to buy the slips, the potatoes, [indistinct 00:32:47] slips. And I asked if he would give me permission to go the county farm. See, the county farm, at that time, they had large truck patches, and those guys, those [indistinct 00:32:58], you know, they set out potatoes, acres of potatoes. And they planted acres of vegetables, different varieties. | 32:17 |
| W.J. McCaskill | And I asked him permission to go to the potato patch and cut the vine and set them out. And he told me, he said, "Yeah you can go." I said, "Well, do you mind if I carry somebody with me?" He said, "I don't mind. One thing I tell you, cut them a certain length." He told me what length to cut them, and they'd heal. And if we start on the road, just keep on out till the end 'till we get what we wanted. And it was acres over there. | 33:07 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Now, I come back in the community, and I contact Mr. Thomas. That was my teacher's husband. He had a truck, and he needed some vine. So he said, "Yeah, I'll go tomorrow. Ben, I ain't got no money to help. Buy the gas." Then I contacted elders in the community who needed some potato vines. So they fronted the gas. And I gathered up the sacks, and they were just gonna set up small patches, so they soon got through and they helped me fill up all my sacks. I go back in the community, I contact my friends, my classmates, my schoolmates, and they help me set out an acre potato. | 33:32 |
| W.J. McCaskill | And that year, my teacher told me about the NYA, the National Youths Administration. That was a program for young people to work from maybe about 18 to 21. You know, to help 'em in school. And I got a job. I remember working on a farm there for 75 cent a day. They work from sun to sun, Monday through Friday. Monday from sun to sun, to Saturday 12 o'clock, and they made only 4 dollar and 10 cent the whole week. They were paying me for 80 hours, sixteen dollars a month, for 80 hours. And I was doing 8 hours a day 10 days, ides of March. And I would walk from here, approximately six miles to work. And then, when I do my 10 days, then I come home. We had one mule, and I took the mule, plowed up the potatoes. | 34:23 |
| W.J. McCaskill | And it was a man in the community that had a one horse wagon. I went and borrowed his wagon and went to town, and I sold potatoes for 25 cent a pick, one dollar a bushel. And I made two dollar and a half, and I felt like I was rich man. On my way home, and soon as I took out, I went straight to that man house that night, and I told him, "I'd like to rent your wagon. I need to sell potatoes. I need to keep it every day." He said, "Boy, I don't rent you that wagon. Your mama's a widow woman, you just go take it and use it. And you don't give me nothing. I ain't gonna take nothing." While he were talking, he reached in his pocket and got plug of tobacco out, and took his knife and cut it, and I read the label, Brown Mule. | 35:30 |
| W.J. McCaskill | So I went on back the next day and hooked that wagon up, and I made three dollars. I bought a plug of Brown Mule tobacco, about 15 cent. And I gave him the tobacco, he take the tobacco. Well every day I went to town, I bought him plug of tobacco. I don't how much tobacco. I was able to buy material. See, one of my sister's was a seamstress. I bough all the material that they need to make they school clothes. I help them bought the clothes that they couldn't make. I bought that. | 36:22 |
| W.J. McCaskill | My brother got cut, and he went to hospital. I paid his hospital bill, because I was making a heap of money. And where boys them days, we had dirt roads and everything, some of them wore boots to school, and overalls. And I'm living on a gravel road, I've had my nice low quality shoes, my sweaters, and my sharp pants, and I was going to school, clean as [indistinct 00:37:33]. (all laugh) So, I told my mother, I said, "I wanna carry you to town and buy you a jacket." She said, "Okay." Thing was so cheap, my mother weighed over 200 pounds. We went to, I believe it was the Kelly store on Callan Avenue. Mama started looking at coats. They started showing my mother coat for $3, and I didn't like it. "How you like that son?" "I don't like it." They went to $4. "How you like that son?" "Mama I don't like it." | 37:04 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Then they got a $7 coat. And mama went to begging me, "Son, you don't need to pay no $7. Time is so hard, and all these children, we gotta keep them in school." And back to back go, "Mama, I don't like it." I went to the rack and I pulled out a coat, "Mama try that one on." She tried it on. This woman said, "Boy, that coat will cost $11." Well, that's the one I wanted. Mama, she almost cried, "Son, please don't pay that much. Mama don't need that kind of coat." I said, "Mama, I know what I want." And this White woman said, "Boy, I'm not trying to sell you no coat, I'm trying to sell your mama." | 38:04 |
| W.J. McCaskill | I caught mama by the hand, "Come on mama." I said, "You've got your dry goods, and I've got my money. Come on mama." She went to crying, she wouldn't put it on, tears were coming down. And she told my mama—You know, back in them times you was auntie or uncle, boy or girl. She said, "Auntie, I'm a White woman, and I won't allow my son to talk to you like that." Mama said, "I'm sorry lady, I don't have a penny. If I get a coat, my son will have to buy it." I said, "Come on mama, let's go." (all laugh) And mama just resist, she wouldn't come out. That woman dried them tears up and sold that coat. | 38:42 |
| W.J. McCaskill | See, $11 was a heap of money. And I know what was at stake. If the owner of that store had known that that woman was double crossing and preventing $11 sale, she'd lost her job. And that the reason why she quit crying. She thought I was a little old boy, a little old mammy's boy. I was a little old man boy, 'cause I had the stuff, I had the business in my pocket. And I know what I wanted. | 39:24 |
| Jackson Brown | You had the bone of the dog, right. | 39:58 |
| W.J. McCaskill | And you don't tell me what I want. I know what I want. I know what I wanted for my mother. But she thought I was just a little old mammy's boy who ran my momma's business. But I'm the one that had the business. | 39:59 |
| W.J. McCaskill | So Professor Hilton, and Mrs. Clotilde Thomas was quite an inspiration. Now, my teacher before then was inspiration, she did it in a different way. She had that power to whoop you. | 40:15 |
| Doris Dixon | Who was that? What was her name? | 40:26 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Mrs. Thomas. | 40:26 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | Thompson. | 40:26 |
| W.J. McCaskill | [indistinct 00:40:36] Thompson. | 40:26 |
| Jackson Brown | [indistinct 00:40:37] Thompson. | 40:26 |
| W.J. McCaskill | She was my teacher from 3rd to 5th grade. And if you had seven subjects, and you missed seven subjects, you got seven whooping that time. And then make no difference how many children was in that class, she'd whoop 'em, every one of 'em. But every subject. She was a little old woman, and I know when she was gonna do it. When I saw her walk up on the church ground, the school ground. If she had on that gray dress. And then she read, in a devotion, when I was a child, I thought as a child, [indistinct 00:41:13] child you gonna walk the line that day. 'Cause you didn't get by with nothing. | 40:37 |
| Jackson Brown | When you'd come on, they'd come on [indistinct 00:41:22]. | 41:19 |
| W.J. McCaskill | She was quite an inspiration because she demanded, and she made the kind of student, she made me be the kind of student that I needed to be. She would assign us 150 problems, or 250 problems on the weekends, keep you out of the road, you know, keep from playing. And if you didn't have them Monday morning you got a whooping. And a whole lot of times, I didn't have 'em, because I was four years behind. In size and in age, I was the daddy in my class. And I was concerned about them pretty girls, I was old enough. And I couldn't spend all that time. When I got to haul that wood out, and cut that wood, I didn't have time to get all of my lessons. | 41:22 |
| W.J. McCaskill | But she made me smart. I could read a problem, it didn't make no difference what was fractions, long division, adding, or what, I could read that problem off the book and hold a piece of paper in my hand that had nothing on it, and recite it as if I had it on that paper. | 42:10 |
| Jackson Brown | Yeah, Mrs. Thompson. | 42:33 |
| W.J. McCaskill | But all of those teachers back then, they were quite an inspiration. And I tell you another thing, what makes a difference. So many of the parents is responsible that children dropping out the school, and they don't know it. You see, teachers—Parent's back then didn't allow the student's come back saying, telling anything about the teacher and saying the teacher was wrong. They didn't allow that. Even though a parent could know that teacher's wrong. But you didn't tell mama "That old teacher don't like me, the old teacher treated me wrong." You didn't tell mama that. You understand. That teacher was right as far as you knew, from mama's actions she was right. | 42:33 |
| W.J. McCaskill | But now, if a child come home and said old teacher don't like me, the parent grab their child and go down there and get into a mental struggle, if not physical, with the teacher. And once that child find out that mama don't like the teacher, and daddy don't like the teacher, the child ain't gonna like the teacher, and the child don't care what the teacher teach. The child not gonna learn. And then when he flunk, and get big enough, he gonna drop out the school. Well, you responsible. | 43:15 |
| W.J. McCaskill | And that's our problem now. Parent is too quick to take sides with the child. Our parent back then, you didn't—Regards to what that parents knew about the other adult, you don't come there telling about old so and so, and so and so told a story on me. You don't do that. | 43:47 |
| Jackson Brown | Oh no. | 44:10 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Because they'll tell you in a minute, you don't call so and so so. She grown. | 44:10 |
| Jackson Brown | You done got so now. You done got so now. I'm scared for the children, and I'm scared for the parents. | 44:12 |
| W.J. McCaskill | See, and we don't realize, on our time, our children is ahead of us. One day, my son went to school, he was up in his teens. He was up there. And he came home, said, "Daddy, the teacher and a boy got to fighting that day." And I said, "He did?" "Yeah." And he told me the teacher name. "Then the teacher hit the boy across the head with a brick and he was bleeding." And I said, "Yeah?" So two or three days later, he came back, he said, "Daddy, you hear that old teacher want to jump on me?" Same teacher. | 44:27 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Now this really happened, what he told. "Old teacher want to jump on me." I said, "Why?" He said, "I wasn't doing nothing. He wanted to jump on me, and I had to [indistinct 00:45:21] daddy." I said, "Well, I'll tell you what you do." I said, "When you go back to school tomorrow, or any time you're at school, if a teacher want to jump on you, you tell that teacher that your daddy don't allow his children to fight with the teacher. You tell the teacher that your daddy said that if he just want to fight, send for me, I'll be there." | 45:07 |
| W.J. McCaskill | He didn't bring it back no more. But he's gonna use what really happened. This thing really happened. You know, he's thinking that far ahead of me. He thought. And then, if I had of said, "Yeah, he's doing you wrong..." He didn't want to go to school in the first place. You know what he's going to do, he's gonna go back to school and literally jump on that teacher. He get's put out of school. He's going to to literally jump on him. | 45:45 |
| W.J. McCaskill | But when I told him who's supposed to do the fighting, and tell the teacher who's supposed to do the fighting. Just whatever he do, just tell him, "Daddy said he'd be down any time you send for him." | 46:09 |
| Doris Dixon | Hmm? | 0:01 |
| Jackson Brown | You're about scared to open your door, and let your own child in the house. And I reckon the children are scared to let their parents in the house. There was a [indistinct 00:00:19] talking about this man down there, I don't know if it was in Mexico or somewhere, because of this song, 14-year-old cut his head off his body. He telling the other younger child just run, "Run, you run. Run." And the man had him still with a knife, cutting his head plum off. Then got in a van, and going out [indistinct 00:00:46] in a 40 mile [indistinct 00:00:49]. His own child. | 0:02 |
| Doris Dixon | Mm-hmm. | 0:52 |
| Jackson Brown | This woman took her baby in the back of a motel and killed it. | 0:52 |
| Doris Dixon | Tell me about— | 1:02 |
| Jackson Brown | [indistinct 00:01:10]. He loose now. | 1:02 |
| Doris Dixon | Mm-hmm. | 1:02 |
| Jackson Brown | I don't know what they say. | 1:02 |
| Doris Dixon | Could you tell me like, the same question, who back in those days was important? Who were the leaders in the community? | 1:23 |
| Jackson Brown | Who was the leaders in this community? I would say, you know, as he told you, the old heads were Squire Thomas. If he was living there, he would be a hundred something year old. Philip Moore was the old founder of this country. He was right here. Professor Moore. He was a preacher and a teacher. Fact of it is, to my saying, when I was going to school, Professor Davis lived maybe five or six miles across that creek over there. And if his creek was up so he couldn't get there, Professor Moore would teach school, until he come. | 2:07 |
| Jackson Brown | It wasn't his job teaching school, but he would teach. He would teach. Of course, he was a preacher and a teacher, too, but he was still a teacher, so he could come to school. And he was one of the founders this country. Professor Moore. | 2:34 |
| Doris Dixon | Phillip Moore? | 2:36 |
| Jackson Brown | Phillip Moore, her dad-in-law. Phillip Moore, dad-in-law. And I would say, I'm talking about the elder people, Johnny Harris. | 2:48 |
| Doris Dixon | What do you remember about Johnny Harris? | 3:00 |
| Jackson Brown | He was just one of the founders of this country and owned land and stuff back there in [indistinct 00:03:10], had about 80 acres of land or more. My wife's great-granddaddy built up this railroad track, old man Henry Ware. And he owned about 100 some acres of land, 150, 60 acres of land. | 3:02 |
| Jackson Brown | Then her mother and father lived across the track over there, across that railroad track, his name Henry Ware Jr. He lived [indistinct 00:03:46] across over there. And he was one of the founders of this country. Elder people, older people. His father died in '29. | 3:18 |
| W.J. McCaskill | My grandfather Keith McCaskill. | 3:54 |
| Jackson Brown | I know, but I'm talking about your dad, who I know, I really knowed your daddy. He was on your grandfather's place over there. He was the one that after your daddy died, he was the beneficiary of his place. Him and his Uncle Robert. I think he had 40 acres of land. His granddaddy was named Kenny McCaskill. | 3:55 |
| Jackson Brown | Then his uncle named Kenny McCaskill. Then his uncle named Tommy McCaskill. His younger uncle was named Mark McCaskill. [indistinct 00:04:38] Mark McCaskill. But probably his brother had probably [indistinct 00:04:46]. And I would say [indistinct 00:04:49] which I had told you already down there. And a lot of old people who helped with the building of this country here. | 4:14 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Now, this might be a great help to you. You have a list of the names of many of the founders, but now the record at the courthouse will inform you to a greater degree. | 5:04 |
| Jackson Brown | Oh yeah, I know. Sure. | 5:23 |
| W.J. McCaskill | As who the founders of, now of course, now, there are many of these old citizens that name has been called. I cannot tell you what is on record. Now, I can tell you what's on record of one person, that's my grandfather. My grandfather bought 40 acres of land in 1881. And we still own a portion of that. | 5:25 |
| W.J. McCaskill | But now, those other names that have been called, they have a record there in the courthouse. And it will tell you from the record when they bought here. It won't tell you when they moved here. They might have been a year before, but at least you got a starting point from when they bought here. | 5:54 |
| W.J. McCaskill | I can't tell you when any of those old settlers came here, and what they did. I can remember them, but I don't know when they came. But now, the history, some of the things that put on record will tell you. | 6:23 |
| Jackson Brown | Retrace. | 6:40 |
| W.J. McCaskill | If you got those names and went to the courthouse and said, "Henry White Senior." They go to the book and they can tell you— | 6:46 |
| Jackson Brown | But she would have to go to Greenwood to get that. He in Carroll County, but it was still, he was recognized in Browning. | 6:55 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Yeah. | 6:59 |
| Jackson Brown | Now, his son, Henry White Junior, he was in Leflore County here— | 6:59 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Yeah, all of those are in Leflore County. You see this community consists of a portion of Carroll County and Leflore County. | 7:10 |
| Jackson Brown | Exactly. [crosstalk 00:07:16] County. | 7:15 |
| W.J. McCaskill | When you find out where that person, what county, you can go to the county courthouse, to that county seat, and you can get a record as to when that person came into this community. | 7:18 |
| Jackson Brown | Yeah, like I was telling about Anne Melissa Dobbie there, Billy Stone out there. Now, she had 40 acres [indistinct 00:07:39], but back in the 30s she got behind with taxes. And they tell me, this Ross man over here, I picked it up somehow or another. And after all, Billy Stone, he dead now, but his wife got the benefit to that place now. But Anne Melissa Dobbie, she was a Black woman. That was Son Wiggins daddy's sister. Hanley Wiggins, did you know him? | 7:30 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Oh yeah. | 8:09 |
| Jackson Brown | That was his sister over there. And that church, over there, called The Sanctified Church. And it was named The Dobbie School. I believe your son's bought it and put on y'all's place down there. Can you remember that? | 8:09 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | Mm-hmm. But that was— | 8:25 |
| Jackson Brown | Sanctified Church. You know they moved it from over yonder. And then they moved it here on the road. And after all, when they got ready to put that church there, your boy, I think bought it— | 8:27 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | Yes he bought it. Charles. | 8:35 |
| Jackson Brown | He got on the place there. I went to that church when I was a little old boy. I used to go over there to The Sanctified Church. That was on Anne Melissa Dobbie's place, that [indistinct 00:08:46] Billy Stone. That was there. Back in the early 30s, they moved that church from there and put it her on the road here. In here, several years ago, you know? But right in there, [indistinct 00:09:03] put that church there that he got there. And one of your boys put it back there on that place there. | 8:36 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | Charles. | 9:18 |
| Jackson Brown | Little old Melissa Dobbie's school. Then I still went to school there. That was back of my sister's there. There was a place there they called Old Hall. Where Masons and Ruths, Oddfellows and things would meet there. Mama belonged to that Ruth Hall there or something. But it was upstairs there. They taught school there. And when they built this Browning Vocation, Rosenwald School. They stopped going to school there. That was way back here, a long [indistinct 00:09:45] 1921 or 1920, or some time, they built that school. | 9:19 |
| Jackson Brown | Because when I started to go into school, there wasn't no well there, but they built that well in 1922. Right there at that church there, that little [indistinct 00:09:57] church sitting down there. But then Rosenwald School. When Professor Hilton got there, they called it a vocational school. | 9:47 |
| Jackson Brown | [indistinct 00:10:10]. | 10:04 |
| Doris Dixon | Who do you remember when you think about the people who were important in this community? | 10:09 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | I think about the same ones, that McCaskill and Mr. Brown has mentioned already, but I'd just like to say that back in that time the teachers were interested in the children. They wanted the children to learn, but now the time has changed, so they almost care if they don't. Because now our, for instance my grandchildren come home without a book. And they have a armful when school over. And how they going to get the lesson without a book. And I ask them what you going to do for the weekend. "We don't have no assignment for the weekend." | 10:19 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | And the lessons during the week are very few. We'll study a little bit, but they tell you, "We had our study period. We had our lesson at school." That tells me there that they're not doing too much. Because I worked with children 41 years, and I always want my children to have a showing some important that they have done since they left home. But they just don't study it anymore. And that's one problem. And that's why the teachers have such a problem. But the children— | 11:07 |
| Doris Dixon | Right. And it was different though. | 11:44 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | Yeah, then. | 11:46 |
| Doris Dixon | Both when you were teaching and when you were in school. | 11:46 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | Sure. Because when I was in school, I had to do what the teacher said to. And when I was teaching school, I saw to them what I asked them to do. But now you can't do that anymore. Teachers can't do that anymore. | 11:51 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | And one thing that I did, when I was working as well as when I was in school, the teachers knew my parent, and I knew my students' parent, almost every one of them. I'd always be to Sunday school with them sometimes. And visit church services with them sometimes. And see, that makes a great big difference. And then we go back Monday morning, I'd always ask every one of them who went to church yesterday. Our children has left church. They don't hardly go to Sunday school. We got a very few. And that makes a great big difference. | 12:08 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | So I don't know what you supposed to do to get them back to, but it's going to have to make to be a big change made with these children. Because they're just growing up. They're just growing up. And they're just busy doing something else besides trying to get their lessons, they're trying to do what their parents tell them to do. Some of them the parents are afraid of their own children. That's the next thing. So that's just really rough. They can't even chastise their children. It's the government that's partly responsible. Because if they chastise them, they'll call in and say it's child abuse. And that's the worst thing I've ever heard of. | 12:55 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | Why you abuse your own child, to the extent of hurting any of them? That's what I mean. You going to give them a spanking. That's what they need. | 13:50 |
| Jackson Brown | Yeah. You can tell that here. | 14:02 |
| W.J. McCaskill | I think the center of our problem at school is we don't have the relationship between teachers and parents. | 14:02 |
| Jackson Brown | That's right. | 14:02 |
| W.J. McCaskill | That's the center of our problems. | 14:02 |
| Jackson Brown | That's right. | 14:02 |
| W.J. McCaskill | And that's the reason why, we don't have—They don't communicate. They can't communicate. | 14:02 |
| Jackson Brown | That's right. | 14:02 |
| W.J. McCaskill | And where people can't communicate, they can't work in unity. There's no unity where there's no communication. | 14:21 |
| Jackson Brown | That's right. | 14:25 |
| W.J. McCaskill | I think that's the center of our problems in school. The center of our problem in the home is we don't make it possible for our children to have a sense of value. Most parents try to give their children what they want. The greatest blessing is to want. The person that don't want, they don't have no sense of value. A person don't have no sense of value, they don't have no goal in life. You understand? | 15:03 |
| W.J. McCaskill | And this is the thing that we need to let our children experience the blessing of want. That's the greatest blessing, to want. If you don't want, you don't have nowhere to go from there. And so many times, we strive to give our children everything that they want. And we don't get the cooperation. | 15:16 |
| W.J. McCaskill | I experienced this when our youngest child started school. He was about 15 years behind the one that we thought was going to be the baby. And actually that made him extra with his mother and with a whole lot of people, but he never was extra with me, because I knew he wasn't nobody's baby, but mine. You understand? And we were going to treat him, like you would anybody else's child. | 15:35 |
| W.J. McCaskill | But anyway, out of the 13 children that grew up in my house, the teacher sent for me, for him, and the principal, more than they did to any child. And when I would go, I would tell him, I said, "What's the problem? Why we can't get any short answers?" I said, "Whatever you think that you need to do, do it. You want to punish him, we in the car with you. If you want to whoop him, whoop him." | 16:00 |
| W.J. McCaskill | "No, we can't punish him and we can't whoop him, because he's the best malleable child, he's the most malleable child on the campus. We don't have any problem. We just need to get him to give his attention." And this went on over and over. The teacher sent for me time after time, each school year, principal, classroom, I'm visiting. | 16:31 |
| W.J. McCaskill | And I reckon they was afraid that I would tell them to do something that I really didn't mean for them to do. So they didn't do it. My brother came home, that boy was maybe about eight years old, carried him rabbit hunting, and he killed two rabbits. Had never used a gun. My brother taught him how to use the gun. He killed two rabbits that day and come home. He was [indistinct 00:17:24] for a gun. | 16:58 |
| W.J. McCaskill | I said I wasn't going to buy it. A whole lot of times when you say a thing, you give you time to rethink. And when I pulled that back through my mine, I said, "I believe I will buy it." I went and bought him the prettiest gun that I could afford, and brought it, and I handed it to him. And I said, "Now, you're going to have to get your assignments up, or I'm going to take this gun away from you." He went to work. He decided to start improving, because he knew that I wasn't going to let him have the gun. He came up. He started giving attention. This problem is solved. He went along for a good while. | 17:22 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Then after awhile he felt like everything was all right. He was bringing me his card, while he was saying in school, report card. They gave him that six month exam, six week exam, he brought that card and handed it to his mother, and I don't know anything about it. I said, "You know, how about your report card?" | 18:06 |
| W.J. McCaskill | He went and got it. I looked at it. And I wanted to use some certain language, you know? I said, "Nigger, you done flunked." And that week my brother come for Christmas. He done come and hunted that week. My wife said, "Friday, you going to take the children to Greenfield, and then I'll go hunt with them, and then it'll be time to go back to school." | 18:24 |
| W.J. McCaskill | I didn't say anything, because all of us got in the same place. We went back over it, you know? And we all were together. I said, "We ain't going nowhere." I said, "He come up here with a bad report card. If he can go out there and kill rabbits, if he know how to kill rabbits, he know how to get an assignment out. So he ain't going nowhere." | 18:58 |
| W.J. McCaskill | He started studying. Didn't have no more trouble out of him until 11th grade. He got in 12th grade, I bought an '86 Fifth Avenue, new. And he come in from school. I said, "You got the assignment out?" "Yeah, I got them out at school." | 19:13 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Now, he telling her that, because she going to tell him to get in the car and run to the store. And he going to get his chance to style the car in the community with the other youngsters. This is a pretty car. The girls and boys be about 16 years old. He was only 17. | 19:13 |
| W.J. McCaskill | And that first six week exam he flunked. Carried the papers, the card to his mama. She signed it. I knew it was time. I said, "Where your card?" I looked at it. And I got [indistinct 00:20:12]. I said, "You done flunked." I said, "You grounded." He said, "Dad, for six weeks?" I said, "Longer than that." | 19:22 |
| W.J. McCaskill | I had let him have the car on a Wednesday night. And on the weekend, I would sacrifice on the weekends, if I needed, and let him have the car, and get an old truck. But after then, I wouldn't let him have the car on the weekend if I needed it. And I quit letting him have it on Wednesday nights, Wednesday period. He didn't get anymore. | 20:24 |
| W.J. McCaskill | He started from that very day, when I told him he was grounded, and got back in his books, and when he finished, he finished above average student. Now, he would have flunked 12th grade if I had have let him. | 20:58 |
| Jackson Brown | That's true. | 21:04 |
| W.J. McCaskill | And this is the thing that we have got to learn. We have got to learn as parents to take away from that child the very thing he wants. If he don't want nothing, you can't nothing with him, but if there is something that child want, you have got to learn what it is, and take the very thing, the thing that's most dear to him, you've got to take it away. | 21:07 |
| W.J. McCaskill | I had, there was a young lady, she was about 12, 13 years old, at the church I pastor, Mama came, household came, brought the little lady in, and I told her to get the husband, brought them all in the study, and they went to relate the problem. They couldn't get her to study. I asked, I said, "Baby, what is it that you like to do so well, until you neglect to study?" | 21:30 |
| W.J. McCaskill | She said, "I like television." I told him, "Let's take television away from her." I said, "Don't let her look at television until she has got her assignments out." And the mother said, "Yeah, because we got a television in our room. Everybody got a television in their room." I said, "Don't you all look at a television until she get her assignments done." | 21:58 |
| W.J. McCaskill | She started improving from then. You know why? When the mama tell her to cut her television, she cut it off. Then she said, "Mama, you know what Reverend McCaskill said, y'all got to cut y'all's television off." | 22:26 |
| W.J. McCaskill | She felt like she had some authority. So mom and dad had to cut their television off in their room, and everybody's television off. And her assignments started coming up. Talking about how much progress she had made. | 22:34 |
| Jackson Brown | I'll say it's nice to be good and kind to your children, yeah. You can't be too kind and nice to them. But they is not going to obey you if they don't have no fear of you. You've got to have a line marked that they should not cross. And if they cross it, then you need to punish them for it. Because I tell you what, no, I wouldn't have served the Lord, if I didn't fear him. No, I'm not scared of him, but I fear him, if I don't do what he say to do. | 22:50 |
| Jackson Brown | There ain't no other place for me but [indistinct 00:23:34]. If I don't believe Jesus Christ the son of God, and repent and believe in all my heart, soul and mind, there ain't no other place for me but hell. And that's the reason I obey and try to serve the Lord. | 23:33 |
| Jackson Brown | But if a child don't obey his parents, and they ain't got no fear of them, I can do anything I want, and I can tell them what I want, when I get home they're going to believe it, they going to do what they want. And they going to go astray. That's what they going to do. But now you got to have a line for them to go, a deadline, don't go there. Do, you going to be punished when you get home. I'm not going to give you what you say you want. I'm not going to buy nothing for you, if you don't do what I say to do. You going to obey me. | 23:49 |
| Jackson Brown | Now, when you get grown, you're going to have your way [indistinct 00:24:27]. You know. And that's the way I is. None of my children going to come there to my house. I got them grown. I got 11 children, but they ain't going to come there and take over my house. And my rule is they obey whiles you there. If you don't want to do something like that, you don't think I'm going to be satisfied, let me know, and I'll tell you yes or no. | 24:22 |
| Jackson Brown | Don't do that, and then when I come, try to compromise with me. No, y'all did wrong. No. No. I ain't like that. No. And so children will obey if you start with them right. And if you start with them while he's young, make them obey then, then we get larger he still will obey. Then if he get grown, and there's something he know you don't approve, he ain't going to bring it to your house. | 24:55 |
| W.J. McCaskill | I think we should put forth an effort to make dreamers out of our children. See, when that sense of value, go back to the sense of value and the blessing of want makes a dreamer. You probably can think of the many things that you really wanted when you were growing up. Your parents never gave it to you. It made you a dreamer. | 26:15 |
| W.J. McCaskill | You said, "When I become an adult, when I become a woman, I'm going to get so and so, and so and so." Once you become a dreamer, you sets a goal. You understand. Your goal is to get what you wasn't able to get when you was in mama's house. It made you a dreamer. | 26:15 |
| W.J. McCaskill | So this what we need. We need to strive to make dreamers out of our children, because a person that don't have a dream, you don't have a goal. And it's a possibility for a dream to become a reality if you will strive. Because to make a stream become reality, you must have a sense of orientation. | 26:19 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Find out where your starting point is, and where you're [indistinct 00:27:03] and determine where you're going from here. You don't need nothing but a map and a compass, except orientation. So this is what life is all about. If we can find out where we came from, we can determine where we are. And if we can determine where we are, we can decide how to go from here to our destiny. That's all it is. And if you don't have a dreamer, if you can't make a dreamer out of them, there's no goal. If there's no goal, there's nowhere to go. | 27:00 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | And I think our children, they just don't have anything to do. Nothing to do now. We used to have to work. We had something to do when we got home from school. But now our children don't have anything to do. And that has [indistinct 00:28:17]. | 28:00 |
| Jackson Brown | That's true. That's true. | 28:14 |
| W.J. McCaskill | And then, Sister [indistinct 00:28:19]. | 28:14 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | Yes. | 28:14 |
| W.J. McCaskill | The little things that they have to do, a whole of times parents end up doing them. | 28:14 |
| Georgia Willis Moore | That's true. What I'm saying, they don't do that. That's true. | 28:14 |
| W.J. McCaskill | A whole of times, the mother come home from the job, wash the dishes, because children won't work. | 28:29 |
| Jackson Brown | [indistinct 00:28:35]. | 28:32 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Where you see, it makes a dreamer to make that child do the very thing he don't want to do. | 28:37 |
| Jackson Brown | That's true. That's right. | 28:43 |
| W.J. McCaskill | My son didn't want to farm. I knew he didn't want to farm. I wanted to make him farm, because I knew he didn't want to do it. And I knew if I made him do what he didn't want to do, he going to dream. "I ain't going to do this when I get grown. I'm going to do so and so, and so and so." | 28:44 |
| W.J. McCaskill | So that's my reason for making him do what he didn't want to do. He needed to work and that was the only kind of work I had for him, and he had to do it. And he said, "I ain't going to do it when I get grown." That made him a dreamer. | 29:01 |
| Jackson Brown | That's right. | 29:21 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Made him get grown, too. Made him leave home at 17 years old. He finished school at 17 years old, and he didn't want to go out there and sell them potatoes. So he volunteered and went to the Army. I didn't want him to go to the Army. I wanted him to go to the Air Force, but he wanted to go, and his mama wanted him to go. I signed. We signed. He went to the Army. When he finished the basic training, he had risen to the level of [indistinct 00:29:56]. | 29:24 |
| W.J. McCaskill | Come out the Army, he knew what he wanted to do. Up to a point. Now, he's out of school, he done took his [indistinct 00:30:10] exam, and he waiting for the results. He ain't signed no contract with nobody. He done had about 12 interviews. They done sent for him, and set him in motels, and go all of the expense, he ain't signed no contract yet. He waiting for the results. | 29:55 |
| W.J. McCaskill | He ain't signed no contract and he ain't went in no debt. He don't owe nobody nothing. He got a temporary job. But he don't know what he's going to do. I'll be glad when he comes back, he can decide what he's going to do. | 30:28 |
| Jackson Brown | I don't think young folks know what they want to do. I don't believe they do. | 30:48 |
| W.J. McCaskill | He knows what he want to do, but [indistinct 00:30:54]. | 30:48 |
| Jackson Brown | I don't know what he out there. I got a granddaughter— | 30:48 |
| W.J. McCaskill | He know what he [indistinct 00:31:01]— | 30:48 |
Item Info
The preservation of the Duke University Libraries Digital Collections and the Duke Digital Repository programs are supported in part by the Lowell and Eileen Aptman Digital Preservation Fund